Report # 24254(Class A)Submitted by witness on Saturday, July 26, 2008.Woman remembers she and a male friend watching an upright creature walking on the edge of moonlit Lake Hamilton(Show Printer-friendly Version)

OBSERVED: A male friend and I left a local nightclub to go sit quietly by the lake. We had both had a couple of beers in a 5 hour period, but this was around midnight-12:30 am on Saturday night, Sunday morning. Neither of us were drunk, or tipsy at that time. I loved nature, and always spent as much time as possible in the outdoors. It was a beautiful night, with a full moon and we decided to go to Lake Hamiliton, about a 13 minute drive on the highway from our location. We were in a truck, and took the access road and parked so we were facing the lake. Surrounding the lake is very thick woods, and this particular area was for fishing and not used very much. We got into the back of the truck, and sat on a blanket, enjoying the peace and quiet. We heard the normal sounds, an owl, a branch creak, etc but nothing out of the ordinary. The moon was extremely bright, and it was easy to see about 2/3 of the lake shore. Around 1am or so, I noticed a dark shape to my right. My friend was on my left, and I motioned to him to be quiet. I made the shhh sound. At first we couldnt identify species or size, because it went in and our of visual field. The creature seemed to be walking around the lake, sticking close to the woods and forest. There is a small stretch, about 100 yards where they have made access for fishing, and the creature was almost to that point, which would put him straight across from us, about 75 feet away. We both saw it at the same moment, and looked at each other, wide eyed and open mouthed and then looked back to the creature. It was too far off to see tiny details of the face, but close enough to note the following; it was substanially larger than even a big man. It had to be at least 8 feet, it appeared to be covered in fur or hair, and it had walked upright the entire time we watched it. I am familiar and have seen MANY bears in the wild and this was NOT a bear! It's posture was upright, yes a bit stooped. It had long arms, long like a humans, but not overly long, I would say its arms reached about mid thigh. It had a flattened face, and big rather dense bone on the arms and legs. It resembled NOTHING I, nor my friend had ever seen before. I grabbed his arm, and as I did, the creature turned, and startled, seemingly as if spotting us for the first time. He seemed to waiver on what to do.. as if he wasnt sure if he should receed or move forward. At the moment he began walking in our direction, towards the truck we both literally jumped up off the truck bed, and into the cab of the truck! I looked through my window, as he was starting the truck and advised him it was still "walking" towards us.At that time I rolled down my window, and realized it was only probably 25 feet from our truck, I said, go.. go.. go.. and he sped off.We discussed this over and over again, but could not come up with any creature that could possibly have been what we saw. This was back before I had ever even heard of "bigfoot" and so I had no knowledge that such a creature even existed. Around 1999, I came across some articles online about bigfoot, and when I read the descriptions, my blood ran cold. It was EXACTLY what my friend and I had seen that night.It surely was not anyone in costume, we made the decision late one night to go to the lake, and we know it wasn't a bear. I know in my heart that what I saw was a bigfoot, and no one could ever convince me othwerise.

ALSO NOTICED: no

OTHER WITNESSES: Yes, a friend, Sean

OTHER STORIES: none

TIME AND CONDITIONS: Approx 1:15 am

ENVIRONMENT: Heavy, densly wooded surrounding a very large lake. Mixture of pine and oak forests.

Follow-up investigation report by BFRO Investigator Cathy Betz:

I spoke to CC over the phone and she had these details to add-

-She and her companion decided to park next to Lake Hamilton in a very secluded area to sit on the tailgate of his truck. It was approx. 1230am with a full moon, clear skies and the landscape was brightly lit.

-After a half of an hour or so, CC and her companion began hearing noises, what she describes as male cats fighting, coming from the distance. But they were not alarmed at that point. Very soon afterwards they saw a tall, bipedal creature come out of the wood-line. It appeared to be walking the shoreline, looking towards the lake, seemingly oblivious to them. It slowly wandered closer to them for about two minutes, still looking at the lake, then when it got to the point that the truck and the lake were on either side of it, it stopped and turned towards them. At this point it was approximately 80-feet away from them.

-According to CC, she didn’t know what a bigfoot was at the time. Her first reaction was that of disbelief because she couldn’t understand what she was seeing. What she saw was a creature that was covered in ‘smooth and flowing’ evenly length, brownish-black, or reddish-brown hair. It stood well over eight feet tall and was approximately 300lbs or more. It appeared to her to be male because its shoulders were wide, yet sloping, very muscular, and its hips were leaner in proportion to its shoulders. Its arms were longer in proportion to a man’s arms and its legs were long and slightly bowed. The head sat squarely on its shoulders and its head was ‘big’ and oval in shape. It didn’t appear to have any ears. The nose, when seen when it was in a side view, was described as ‘flat’ and not protruding, nor was its chin, and it had a heavy brow with large, dark eyes that were difficult to make out because its face was in shadow when it was looking straight at them. The hands had definite fingers with hair seen on the backs of the hands. She described its gait as more ‘human-like’ than anything except that when it took a step the legs swung out slightly at the knees, rotating at the hip. Overall, CC stated that it was ‘sturdy, muscular and compact’ and on two feet the entire time. From what CC described its stride was very long with one of its steps equaling about three to four human steps.

-According to CC, in the two minutes or so that it took before the creature noticed them and stopped to turn towards them, its behavior and actions were calm and assured, as if it had been to this spot before. Then, after standing still and silent for another minute or so, observing them, it began to slowly approach the vehicle. This is when CC and her companion really began to become frightened and took action. They both ran and climbed into the cab of the truck and while her companion started the motor and began to drive off, CC looked out of the open window of the truck and saw that it was closing in on them rapidly. They sped away and soon lost sight of it. They never heard it utter a sound nor did they smell any unusual odors.

-In retrospect, CC is adamant that what she saw was ‘not a bear’, ‘not a wolf’, ‘not a person’, and ‘not a gorilla’. At the time she couldn’t explain what she saw but to her it was ‘an experience that she’ll never forget’. In speaking to her I found CC to be honest, forthright and sincere while relating the details of her encounter. The companion she was with has not been in communication with her for many years and she does not know how to contact him.

About BFRO Investigator Cathy Betz:

Cathy has been a nurse for over 27 years and currently works in a busy ICU. An amateur naturalist, Cathy has been intrigued by the bigfoot phenomenon from an early age.Attended the following expeditions:- The 2006 Florida Expedition- The 2007 North Carolina Expedition- The 2008 South Florida Expedition- The 2008 North Florida Expedition- The 2009 Central Florida Expedition- The 2009 Utah Expedition- The 2010 TN Survey Expedition- The 2011 East Texas Expedition-The 2012 North FL Expedition-The 2013 Michigan Upper Peninsula ExpeditionFor more information, please see the Florida BFRO